Eggplant and Zucchini Noodleless Lasagna

I picked up some eggplant at our local tomato farm the other day. My absolute favorite way to eat eggplant is fried. My hubby’s grandma makes amazing fried eggplant. But yeah, not part of the diet way. So I asked my Twitter pals for suggestions and someone suggested slicing the eggplant thin and using it as the noodles in lasagna. Now I love my pasta. Really, truly love it. But I was intrigued by this concept, so I decided to try it. The eggplant I bought was actually fairly small, so I supplemented with the ginormous zucchini from my garden. The results were surprisingly good. You get 4 really good sized servings for only 318 calories and 16.3 grams of fat! And I”m talking servings that legitimately leave you FULL (and let’s face it, I can eat). It’s low carb, low fat, low cal and still good. What a concept!

Ingredients:

1 small eggplant

1 huge zucchini

1 jar spaghetti sauce (your choice)

8 oz. part-skim ricotta cheese

1 cup finely grated mozzarella, divided in half

1 egg

1 oz. parmesean, finely grated

4 oz baby bella mushrooms

1 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp basil

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

kosher salt

pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425.

Cut the ends off the zucchini and eggplant, then slice them lengthwise in 1/4″ strips.

Spray both sides with cooking spray and lay out on a baking sheet. Sprinkle with kosher salt.

Bake on one side for 10 minutes. Flip, then bake for another 10 minutes.

Once you have your veggie slices baked (the whole point is that you’re removing some of the natural liquid in the veggies), you’re going to spray a 9×9 baking dish with cooking spray.

Cover the bottom with a thin layer of the spaghetti sauce.

Layer the eggplant and zucchini over that.

Layer a third of the ricotta mixture over the veggies.

Layer a third of the mushrooms over that.

Then the sauce again and so on and so forth (being sure to alternate the direction of the slices) until you wind up with the last layer of cheese over the last of the mushrooms and sauce.

Sprinkle the last 1/2 cup of mozzarella over the top. Add the parmesean.

Put your baking dish on a tray in case it bubbles over.

Bake for 8 minutes (or until cheese is slightly brown).

Allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before cutting.

I might add a full teaspoon of red pepper flakes, and the full container of ricotta (mmm cheese). You could absolutely add meat to this recipe–a nice lean ground turkey or chicken (unseasoned or Italian sausage) would keep it light and bulk it up even more for any carnivores in your family or if you’re feeding more than 4. One other thing I love about this recipe is that it’s small. All of my usual lasagna recipes are ENORMOUS, which is great for a crowd, but my hubby doesn’t care for lasagna, so unless we’re entertaining, it’s just me eating it, and I don’t like leftovers that many days in a row. It was also much faster than making traditional lasagna (bonus), which makes it an excellent choice for a weeknight dinner.